How does one go about creating an effective work team?

After a need has been found, it should be should be supported by good team building activities that consistently inculcate high spirits amongst the staff. This sees members of staff graduate into good brand ambassadors for the company that they work for. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • That notwithstanding, a winning business team must have the depth of experience required to effectively run any particular business. Guess work must never be given a chance to ruin business. Equally important are working resources.
  • The team, depending on the size of the business, must have the required number of staff to run the strategic functions.
  • An effective team must have an effective system in place so as to function well. The organisation must automate its functions so that key information is available even when an important member of the team exits the organisation.

More often than not, CEO’s and management teams tend to focus more on costly annual team building activities.

However, many of the facilitators, who provide team building, create fun events that are not aligned withreal team development needs thus wholly misplacing the concept completely.

Team building should be a constant approach to the daily operations of any organisation, says, Mr David Mugun the CEO at Business Persons Mentor Ltd, a company in the Strategy, Training and Staff Recruitment space. “Team building is not a special Olympics day away from the office,” he warns managers.

Team building should be aligned to an organisation’s goals and business strategies. What is critical, is a needs assessment that will derive maximum impact depending on the stage or the situation prevailing in the organisation. “There can never be a one size fits all approach,” Mr Mugun shares.

After a need has been found, it should be should be supported by good team building activities that consistently inculcate high spirits amongst the staff. This sees members of staff graduate into good brand ambassadors for the company that they work for.  

Organisations fail when they do not conduct a needs assessment before a team building event. However, most important is a team decision-making session, Mr Mugun says, and specialists must be used to aid in this process. How much a company will spend, is dictated by the identified needs.

However, it is not only team building activities that build strong teams. For that team cohesion, leadership is very crucial. The most practical business leaders know that there are times to manage and time to lead their team. “Management is more about controls and leadership has more to do with inspiration. A good mix of both forms the back bone for success,” says Mr Mugun.

That notwithstanding, a winning business team must have the depth of experience required to effectively run any particular business. Guess work must never be given a chance to ruin business. Equally important are working resources.

The team, depending on the size of the business, must have the required number of staff to run the strategic functions. “Doing too many roles as an individual is not healthy for both the team and the business,” Mr Mugun says. The business must also provide adequate financial resources needed to keep all operations going. 

CONSISTENT TEAM ACTIVITIES

For a team to be effective, there is also the need for an effective strategy that marshals everyone towards working for a common goal. “The strategy must be thought out, discussed by the team so that both clarity and by-in are attained, and the execution steps and timelines must be clearly articulated to all concerned,” explains Mr Mugun.

An effective team must have an effective system in place so as to function well. The organisation must automate its functions so that key information is available even when an important member of the team exits the organisation. Equally important is an internal structure that can support the organisation’s business strategy. The best brains cannot form a winning team if the organisation structure is ineffective.

Periodic work performance appraisal done through a performance management is crucial to a team’s success. “Only what gets measured, gets done and what is not measured is ignored by business teams,” he points out. Integrity is key to any team’s success. To win customers trust, you must first win the trust test internally.

However, according to the book High Performance Teams: How to make them work by Marc Hanlan, for organisations to develop and manage effective teams, they must have a clearly outlined organisational culture, communication, talent development and a work-life balance approach to work.

Marc Hanlan points out that organisational culture that celebrates individual and organisational successes stands a higher chance of retaining staff. Mr Mugun agrees with Marc: “An open culture that is meritocratic is healthy for any business,” he says.

The book outlines that communication is a crucial ingredient to a consistent team spirit, and for it to be successful it must encourage feedback. The leadership must purpose to meet senior staff on a weekly basis and the same trickled down respective departments by the heads of those departments. A quarterly meeting with all staff or as many as can attend depending on how spread out the business is, is crucial in keeping the team on the same page.

Deliberate team building and bonding days at both departmental and company level are important for a high spirits team. Besides this, the hiring process must embrace two things beside qualifications and experience. The team should consider a multicultural approach as well as hire people from outside the industry, Mr Mugun points out. “These two ensure that ideological and cultural inbreeding are minimised, while giving the organisation a face that epitomises the market realities,” adds Mr Mugun.

Talent development is important because employees feel needed when the company trains them and provides other developmental opportunities. Besides, a work life balance approach is recommended so that staff have some hours away from work say, once or twice a month. 

VIRTUAL TEAMS

With technology, many companies are hiring remote workers (freelancers) who can work from anywhere in the country and deliver. And with this, comes the need for companies to understand how to manage virtual teams. It begins with the job specification. Usually virtual staff must be the type that work with limited supervision, though the rule of thumb is, if you do not inspect, then do not expect.

A special time must be set aside to meet with the virtual staff individually and collectively.

A virtual team must also be given a special set of incentives, centered on performance, if they are sales people, or number of satisfied clients – if they are call center type functions. Depending on the tasks at hand, flexi days can help maintain high spirits so long as the day’s tasks are accomplished.

Where applicable, rotate the teams so that people work from different locations. It also pays huge to have virtual reward days for those who have met their objectives, as this develops the sense of team spirit even though the team members are miles apart — Mr Mugun shares.

It is not just skills and expertise that come into play when constituting business teams, a healthy personality mix too comes into account. People fall under four general categories. The dominant, influencers, supporters; and finally those that conscientious or meticulous, Mr Mugun highlights. 

The dominant personality, wants results like yesterday. The influencers and the dominant, tend to be extroverts while the supporters and the conscientious are introverted. The extroverts are brave enough to bring ideas openly and are ready to execute. The introverts will only support after giving it much thought. Both personalities and the four types are good to have in a functional team.

“It would help if companies employed the use of personality assessments periodically to understand the personality mix,” Mr Mugun advises.

Sometimes people shift from one personality type to another, depending on the challenges being encountered at that time in their lives. An introvert might become extroverted when they get a promotion to a leadership role, he adds.